Kelly, you've brought up something very interesting. I recently was "in the market" for a new kitty and stumbled upon something amazing. Although there must be literally thousands of pets in the state I live in, the shelter where I got our cat brings all of its animals in from another state -several states away, in fact. They routinely have people driving these cats up from Kentucky to New York (yes, you read that right!) I was simply astounded. However, what I've realized since then is that this is a very common practice. I'm not sure why, but apparently this happens all over the country. (Puhleaze! .....like NY doesn't have enough stray cats looking for "forever homes"!!)
Sometimes these are long trips for one driver, but often they arrange "tag teams" and relay them, one person only driving a hundred or so miles. However, they do seem to use volunteers. I wonder who would pay (well) for this kind of service? A private pet owner giving their beloved pet away to someone in another state? I could see this if it were some sort of exotic pet -african gray parrot or something. The other thing I could see would be illegal or dangerous pets --poisonous snakes or other animals. I do think that there is a pretty big "exotic pet" trade and maybe some of this would require transport from larger cities to smaller. Something to think about. I think that it would be a tremendous stretch to think Steven were knowingly transporting something illegal, but it strikes me that a very hard-up person might do something a lot less "mainstream" than he would otherwise -and hide it from his friends and family.